The city of Priest River is looking into its wastewater treatment plant after an “unknown quantity of sludge” was released into the Pend Oreille River on Wednesday.

According to a news release from the city, the hour-and-a-half-long release was “observed” by a wastewater operator “before it was stopped.”

“The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency have been contacted about this potential violation of the city's federal NPDES permit for the discharge of treated wastewater into the Pend Oreille River,” the news release continued.

Citizens are not at risk from the wastewater release and Priest River is “taking further action to prevent this type of event from reoccurring.”

Fill 'er up, please!

On a recent visit to Sandpoint, Idaho it was discovered that Pend d'Oreille Winery has a magic spigot from which a never-ending flow of wine pours. That may be a tad-bit dramatic... yet they still have an awesome offer of refillable magnums of wine.

The idea came from co-proprietor Julie Meyer, who was tired of seeing empty bottles of wine go to waste (there is no market for recycled glass in Sandpoint, so the city is forced to reintegrate the glass into solid waste for disposal at a landfill in Eastern Oregon).

The 1.5 litre bottles, or more affectionately known as "Magnums" by wine-os, can be purchased for $27 at first. Then, a refill only costs $17.50.

Denise Alveari, the winery's PR person, says Pend d'Oreille is the first in Idaho - if not the Northwest - to do this.

The winery offers refills of their house Bistro Rouge Red Table Wine or a white wine, which they happened to be out of when I was in town.

As a result of declining revenues from the Secure Rural Schools Act, several Idaho counties are hoping to transfer management of forest from federal to state hands.

SANDPOINT — Idaho counties with substantial amounts of federally-owned lands are proposing a pilot project to transfer management of 200,000 acres of forest to the Idaho Department of Lands